Week 28 - I Love Manta

Basically, I have like one minute to write, and I don´t have time to send pics but I´ll send them next week.
But basically the Lord is working miracles here in Tarqui. It feels like Elder Walker and I are opening up a new sector. We had a baptism this Saturday, Moises Plaza. And the Lord is helping us a lot with finding new people.
I love Manta and I love being a missionary. On Sunday we went to my old Branch so that my companion could interview one of my old investigators for baptism, and EVERYONE in the Branch was so happy to see me one last time and I forgot my camera, but they all took photos with me. I love and miss them all so much, but I know that I´m here in Tarqui for a reason :

Love,

Elder Nájera

Week 27

Carnaval is this weekend, and we`re not going to be allowed to leave the house for a few days, so we were allowed to write today.

Elder Walker and I have been working like crazy trying to talk to 20 different people everyday so that we can have people to teach.

I feel like I`m in a whitewashed area. We have no less actives, no recent converts, and only one investigator. He`s super cool. His name`s Moises, and he already had a baptismal date for the 21st of February. We have a ton of work to do.

I was sick for a few days, and I had to spend an entire day in bed, but I`m all better now. Well, that`s all for now.

Happy Valentine`s Day.

Elder Najera

Week 26- I got Transferred but I am still in Manta

Elder Criddle and I were able to put Adriana and Darwin on date for the 21st :) Andrés is going to receive the Aaronic Priesthood this week so that he can baptize his wife. Sadly, I won´t be there /:

I got transferred today to a new area. My new companion is Elder Walker. LUCKILY, I'm still in Manta :) I´m really excited for this opportunity that I have to work with a new ward, but I was a bit sad to leave because of all of the people we were working with.

This week´s going to be great.

Love, Elder Nájera

Week 25

We have like 4 people that want to get baptized, but three of them need to get married.  The other one is a certain Adriana Chinga. She´s going to be baptized by her ex-less active husband on February 21st :) They went to the Stake Conference this week. Stake conference was pretty dang good. Two other investigators showed up! We just started teaching them last week, but they already give us food and everything. Their names are Luis and Jenny.
Jenny is baptized in the Jehovah´s Witness church but stopped going because of some things she  didn´t like. Luis believes in God and the Bible, but has never been in any religion. They both loved Stake Conference and are stoked to keep learning more. They want to be married, and they want to be baptized. Jenny reads every single pamphlet that we leave her, and she´s in 1 Nephi 5 :)

Love, Elder Najera

Week 24

I apologize for not writing for the past two weeks.

Anyway, this week we found this guy from New York called Cesar. He´d been living there for the past 20 years but got deported. We taught him about 3 times and each time we taught him the lessons got more and more awkward/weird. Turns out he has mental problems. So yeah. We dropped him. But it was a good learning experience! Elder Criddle and I will be paying close attention to everything that people do and say from now on :)

Aside from that, we´ve been working with an investigator called Pablo. He´s super cool, and always tries to speak English with us, haha :) He´s gone to church two times, and his only challenge right now is that he´s not married to his wife. But he loves, and knows that everything we´ve taught him about the importance of families is true. In one of his prayers (He likes to attempt to pray in English) he said "One day my family will be Christian" :)

We have a tone more investigators and less active members that we´re working with, but I honestly don´t have time to write about them all with the whole one-hour limit to be on the computers /: So that´s all for now.

Love,
Elder Nájera.

P.s. I tried Polaca this week. And it´s heavenly.
P.p.s. I´ve started writing in my journal every night.

Week 21 New Year

New year´s was fun! There was another emergency transfer and we spent the night inside and we watched the fireworks from the balcony with some new Elders. It was basically like WWIII for 40 minutes. We stayed up until 4amplaying Monopoly. And we were allowed to watch Rambo and Star Wars the next day! Well, Toy Story, actually. So I was pretty content :)
This week we are finally seeing the fruits of our efforts! We set a baptismal date, and are having Lucy´s baptism this Saturday, finally! We also helped another family who´s been trying to get married for like 3 years find a good lawyer so they can do that :) We´re having a lot more support from the branch. We had like 8 member present lessons this week!
Anyway, this week´s been great. And yesterday was a good fast and testimony meeting. It is nice to hear the sincerity in some of the members´ testimonies and being able to feel the spirit as we take the sacrament. Anyway, I hope you are all having a fantastic week. Here are two audio logs :)
Love,
Elder Najera

Audio from week 19
December 18th



Audio from Week 21
January 4th

Week 20

Bueno, I don`t even know where to begin.

   This last week was pretty cool! We went to the Zone Leaders' apartment and all 12 of the Elders from our zone were there for Christmas. We weren`t allowed to leave. I think it has something to do with the people and their partying and stuff. Anyway, we spent that day just laying around, watching Disney movies, and eating all of the food that members brought us all day. We also had pizza! I was super excited.

We were allowed to Skype our families for an hour, and go out to eat dinner for an hour. But apart from that, were inside all day. I wish we would have been able to work, but I must admit that it was nice to relax for a bit. I made another audio log, but I forgot to bring it with me to the Cyber.

I spent a lot of time reading on Christmas. I read Jesus The Christ. Super good book, I highly recommend it. I have been trying to learn more and more about Jesus this holiday season since I`ve been spending the last 20 weeks trying to get people to come closer to him :)

They have some interesting traditions here for Christmas and New Year`s. On Christmas day, They stick these bamboo sticks about 25 feet high, into the ground. They had previously been sanded down really nice, and buttered up. Then they put prizes at the top of them, and people try and climb them in whatever way they can, and if they can do it, they get whatever`s at the top. It reminded me of Mulan, haha. And for New Year`s they make these things kind of like piñatas, called manigotes. Some are small, and some are 50 feet high, and on New year`s they set them on fire!!

Anyway, I promise I`ll write more next week, I had quite a few emails to respond to this week, and If I didn`t respond to you yet, know that I will, and that I`m grateful for your letters! I hope you all had a great Christmas. And I hope that you all spent some time remembering our savior this holiday season.